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The ice-ages of The Colony

Casting for "The Colony" - a Canadian indie project - is picking up steam, with Laurence Fishburne reportedly in final negotiations to star in the upcoming sci-fi film.

As you may have guessed from the movie’s title, The Colony is a post-apocalyptic flick which takes place after the onset of a disastrous Ice Age and the (hard) fall of humanity. Forced underground, a small group of subterranean survivors try to adapt and survive as they contend with dangerous feral cannibals.

Now I know what you're thinking: this sounds like your typical b-class horror film. Yes, that would certainly be a fair assessment, at least judging by the brief synopsis.

But I’m personally holding out hope because Colony will be filmed in NORAD’s Canadian Underground Complex, which was nicknamed The Hole during the Cold War.

Constructed even before Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, The Hole has been kept in 'warm' storage since it was officially decommissioned by NATO in 2006.

Now I realize that a set, no matter how perfect it is, can’t replace dialogue or a good script. But it will likely go a long way in giving the film a Jericho or Stargate type of feel - which quite a lot of science fiction fans can relate to.

Plus, the fact that Laurence Fishburne, along with Kevin Zegers (Wrong Turn, Transamerica, Frozen), are close to clinching a deal with Alcina Pictures seems like a good sign to me. Yes, I’m painfully cognizant that not everybody was enamored with Fishburne in The Matrix, but I personally think he pulled off a great performance as the one and only Morpheus.

Perhaps it's premature, but I’m looking forward to seeing the first Colony trailer when it eventually goes live. Ditto for the film itself. The Colony will be directed by Jeff Renfroe, based on a script co-written with Patrick Tarr, Pascal Trottier and Svet Rouskov. Production is slated to kick off on February 22.